Why I love NPR and FOX…

Dr. Michael J. O’Connell, New Hampshire, commented that I thoroughly enjoy listening/watching these networks even though I am considered by my incredulous friends a die hard centrist.  My politics is weighted toward fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.  As I have gotten older, this personal dichotomy has only become more entrenched.  Not to mean my views on either side of the ‘great divide’ are extreme or do not change, I am actually quite malleable.  That’s the essence of my entertainment with the aforementioned networks.  I can almost always depend on the both of them to be highly polarized and seldom if ever malleable.  This tendency is powerfully disguised, so part of the fun is to recognize it – usually not difficult.

Let’s be honest, centrism is not part of NPR or Fox parlance.  So when I flip on the stations, I expect, and get, purist ideology.  I know both networks go out of their way to pretend to be free of bias, prejudice and full ofbalance….just the news without the gratuitous pandering fluff.  It’s laughable of course to a centrist, but quite instructive, as to how unnecessarily extreme, idiotic extremists think.  Both networks go through the charade of having presented both sides of an issue, inviting guest speakers who appear (and probably are) entirely convinced of their opposing hard lines.

Unfortunately for the balanced networks, the “moderators” orchestrate the “balanced” discussions in such a way that the presenter they agree with is, or should be, totally apparent to even a casual listener.  The one they disagree with is made sport of, if not castigated and demonized.  He or she is given more limited speaking time, and interrupted and challenged more often (It’s all great fun for me.  I feel like Queen Elizabeth 1, high atop her bluff witnessing the demolition of the Spanish Armada).  And in the end summary, the “moderator” has the true ‘last word,’ and it’s heavily cast in favor of…their favored guest, naturally, the one with the favored ideology.

But anyway, vaguely wishing it were otherwise does not make this entertaining nonsense go away, so I make the very best of it.  Trying to understand a gun proponent’s position that assault weapons are part of ‘sport’ and their use should be protected, is just as ridiculous as the rabid proponent of a woman’s right to choose, at any time of gestation, but who skillfully avoids the uncomfortable concept of supporting late trimester abortions – a messy affair indeed.

Rather than be disgusted or frustrated with these extreme views of NPR and Fox, I derive pleasure.  How? Pleasure that I am a thinking and feeling listener who disagrees as much with the philosophy being advanced, as with the method of advancement.  Again, it’s all great fun.

~ Dr. Michael J. O’Connell, PainCare, New Hampshire